Trust me. I'm an Estate Agent...

kabayiri

Wheezy wrote: »

Sure there is enough transparency regarding property prices.
I believe what irks people most is how they get away with blatant lies about imaginary offers, not passing on offers, encouraging gazumping on properties that are supposed to be taken off the market, etc....

I was involved in a 'closed auction/sealed bids' situation on a property. Some years later I find out that the winning bid was some 13K less than our offer! It transpires that this particular EA wasn't averse to lets say generous gifts coming their way.

Trust an EA? No way!

chewmylegoff

Wheezy wrote: »

Sure there is enough transparency regarding property prices.
I believe what irks people most is how they get away with blatant lies about imaginary offers, not passing on offers, encouraging gazumping on properties that are supposed to be taken off the market, etc....

true, although wouldn't it be far easier to address those problems by just changing the way the legal process itself works, rather than regulating agents.

personally i didn't find estate agents bollox too difficult to deal with as it's pretty obviously when a moron is lying. i can see how it could be particularly annoying in a rising market though.

TangoFiver

googler wrote: »

You do realise that the Govt is currently proposing to repeal the Properties Misdescriptions Act and allow a new class of property 'intermediaries' who won't be subject to the Estate Agency Act ..... i.e. rather than introduce more regulation, the Govt thinks the public would be better served by less?

http://www.bis.gov.uk/Consultations/repeal-property-misdescriptions-act-1991

http://www.tpos.co.uk/downloads/TPO%20Response%20to%20BIS%20Consultation%20to%20Amend%20the%20EAA%201979.pdf

Does anyone know when these will come into effect? And what (if any) these changes will mean if people currently have their property for sale with online agencies who list on RightMove, such as these listed on here:
http://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/blog/privately-advertise-and-sell-your-house-on-rightmove/

Ta!

Zorz_2

chewmylegoff wrote: »

To be fair they have managed to get the words "outstanding, exceptional and striking" all into the first sentence of the property description, but I can't see them shifting it, frankly.

I've always found the language used by estate/letting agents very amusingly intriguing. Maybe because I'm not a native english speaker, I don't know. This rampant inflation of adjectives is linguistically hilarious, if not ridiculous and phony.

"We are delighted to offer this..."
Delighted? No, you're not!

"This property benefits from {some rudimentary thing, like indoor plumbing}"
Maybe, if you're trying to sell a Georgian house, in the Georgian era! Nowdays, we sort of come to expect these things!

"Just a stone's throw away"
Seriously? Who uses this as a unit of measurement anyway? I'm having this image of a pythonesque skit in my head:

{walking down the road}
-See this house over there? {pointing at a row of virtually identical terraced houses}
-Which one?
{picks up a stone from the ground and throws it. Sound of glass shattering and alarms going off}
-This one!

:rotfl:

googler

TangoFiver wrote: »

Does anyone know when these will come into effect? And what (if any) these changes will mean if people currently have their property for sale with online agencies who list on RightMove, such as these listed on here:

I think Parliament has to approve them first. They seem to be merely a proposal from a Govt Dept at the moment.

I don't see any reason for it to 'mean' anything for anyone who currently has a property for sale with these or any other agents. I've seen no suggestion that the legislation will make the current contracts or arrangements between sellers and agents invalid......

Loughton_Monkey

chewmylegoff wrote: »

true, although wouldn't it be far easier to address those problems by just changing the way the legal process itself works, rather than regulating agents.

personally i didn't find estate agents bollox too difficult to deal with as it's pretty obviously when a moron is lying. i can see how it could be particularly annoying in a rising market though.

Just looking back at my last move, I note that three of the main expenses to me were (in ascending order of cost): A full structural survey, solicitor's fees for the sale and puchase, estate agent fees on the sale of my old house.

Unsurprisingly, my view as to the relative value of the three items is exactly the reverse order. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever in my mind that in the current world of the Internet, there is hardly any place for an "Estate Agent". The 'work' that they do could easily be done profitably at a flat £500 or less.

You're right, though, that the legal process needs looking at. As we all know, the lion's share of work is performed by office juniors, interns and the like. But the bill is consistent with a substantial number of hours by the solicitor at £170 plus VAT an hour (or whatever).

When the HIP was first mooted, I naively thought that this was a milestone step towards a sort of official house "log book" that would make the legal process far simpler.

As usual, however, governments have a knack of screwing up good ideas, and turning them round 180°. In this case, it turned into a useless amount of bureacracy aimed at classifying the 'greenness' of the house, and gave EA's the chance to earn more money because now they had to 'look' at their tape measures a bit more closely!

googler

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Just looking back at my last move, I note that three of the main expenses to me were (in ascending order of cost): A full structural survey, solicitor's fees for the sale and puchase, estate agent fees on the sale of my old house.

Unsurprisingly, my view as to the relative value of the three items is exactly the reverse order. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever in my mind that in the current world of the Internet, there is hardly any place for an "Estate Agent". The 'work' that they do could easily be done profitably at a flat £500 or less.

There's no doubt in my mind that you've missed a few aspects from your comparison. Such as;

Of the three, the Estate Agent is the only one required to spend his time travelling back and forth to prospective clients' houses, in the hope of gaining their business, as part of a group of three or more agents pitching at a 'valuation', only to find that only one of them, or perhaps none, get any business (and hence no payment) from the exercise.

When did you last hear of a solicitor or surveyor doing the same?

EAs spend time with buyers who don't buy and sellers who don't sell. Solicitors and surveyors, in the main, don't.

EAs again are back and forth to their client's properties for viewings, and in the case of London agents, appear to be obliged to provide a taxi service, where viewers turn up at the agent's office and expect to be ferried back and forth to view properties. Have you ever known a solicitor or surveyor to do this?

Surveyors get paid for the surveys they do.
Solicitors get paid for the work they do.

Estate Agents are typically on a 'no sale, no fee' basis - they sometimes get paid; if their properties sell; but if they don't, which can sometimes be due to external circumstance, they have to make up these losses from other transactions.

Loughton_Monkey

googler wrote: »

There's no doubt in my mind that you've missed a few aspects from your comparison.......

All relevant points, which do indeed make valid points.

But speaking for myself, I have never used my Estate Agent to show people round. Indeed I much prefer to be there....

Any difference of opinion between us is probably because I am envisaging a different process entirely (for selling houses). You are justifying the costs associated with the current 'handraulic' and more traditional service. If I accept that EA's actually earn a "fair and reasonable" profit, my only main query would be that your description of their costs screams at a fee much nearer to "flat". A percentage of the house price is not logical.

Personally, I'd be more than happy to pay £500 or so to a good website that would allow me (easily) to upload my own description, photographs, and asking price that would be formatted professionally and included in their search engines etc. I would be happy to 'handle' all phone calls, e-mails, enquiries, viewings, and negotiations myself.

We are all broadly aware, now, thanks to Internet, the sales prices of houses near us and in most cases, owners have a pretty good feel for the value. If necessary, a price valuation surely shouldn't cost more than about £150 (an hour) of a local 'professional'?

googler

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

We are all broadly aware, now, thanks to Internet, the sales prices of houses near us and in most cases, owners have a pretty good feel for the value.

If necessary, a price valuation surely shouldn't cost more than about £150 (an hour) of a local 'professional'?

Fair enough, but completed sales aren't the whole picture. Would you have been keeping track of the ones that were put on the market and didn't sell? Would the agents? Do you think that some knowledge of these might be relevant to your pricing?

Would you be aware of general sentiment among buyers, what they're willing to pay, how they feel about houses of your type? Would you have met any buyers who are looking for your type of house prior to going to market? Do you think the agents would? Do you think that those meetings might yield something useful and relevant to your sale?

The first agent anywhere who starts charging for valuations, where his competitors are doing them for free, will be the first to go out of business, I'm confident of that. He or she will go from having a 1 in 3 chance of some business from each valuation to a zero chance of any business, or any valuations.

£150 per hour? Are you sure?